Mental Measurements Yearbook reviews are from the Buros Center for Testing, a non-profit, independent test review center, focusing on psychology and education.
Buros publishes authoritative reference materials that contain descriptions and candidly critical evaluations of commercially available tests, which helps professionals involved in the evaluation, selection, and use of tests.
Access these reviews through the database Mental Measurements Yearbook with Tests in Print. Please note that information from this database is not a substitute for the information in the test's manual.
Search for the assessment tool's name. Use the test's full name, not the abbreviation.
Then, scroll down to find the appropriate test and click on the test name.
This will open the full record of the review, which provides information on population, scores, time, and a brief test description; the full text of the reviews will be below this. HTML Full Text provides a review of the test. After the first review's references, there might be a second review, but there will not be any header to indicate this so read the review carefully!
Since the 7th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association does not specifically address citing MMY-TIP, there are a range of opinions on whether to cite a review as a chapter of a book (as you would for the original print version), or as an article found in a database, or a review in a periodical, etc. The best advice, therefore, is to follow the Buros citation guidelines. The general format for a test review found in MMY-TIP is:
Reviewer, R. R. (date). [Test review of <name of test>]. In A. A. Editor, B. B. Editor, & C. C. Editor (Eds.), The <spell out number> mental measurements yearbook.
For example:
Cellucci, T. (2021). [Test review of Depression Anxiety Stress Scales]. In J. F. Carlson, K. F. Geisinger, & J. L. Jonson (Eds.), The twenty-first mental measurements yearbook.
If you are unable to find reliability and validity information on a measure through Mental Measurements Yearbook, use APA PsycInfo, which might contain articles that review the test/measure.
Unlike in Mental Measurements Yearbook, not every measure or assessment will have a full review article written on it in PsycInfo. Some of the more well-known measures, like the MMPI, may have full reviews and also have a subject heading dedicated to it, but others will need to be searched as keywords. Remember, we’re not searching for the measure itself in PsycINFO, i.e., by its title like we were in MMY. Spelling out the measure’s name, though, can be helpful.
As can putting the name within quotation marks.
However, some articles may be about the administration of the measure in a specific setting and won't give any norming information. Try adding additional terms to your search to narrow the results, such as "test validity," "test norms," or "test reliability." You can search the Thesaurus--at the top of the Advanced Search page--to find appropriate subjects to help narrow your search results.
Don't forget to use Boolean connectors like AND and OR to help with your search! Change to the Advanced Search to help with these and other search options.
Reminder: request articles through Interlibrary Loan if they are not full text in the database! The article's record should have the interlibrary loan form linked in the right column under "Full Text Options."
Depending on the subject of your measure, you might be able to find assessment in scholarly articles included in other databases the library offers. For example, the library has a few multi-disciplinary databases like JSTOR and ProQuest One Academic that might be useful to search for a variety of assessment on tests and measures. Or, you might use a subject-specific database such as Education Source to find reviews of measures in the educational field.
Use the A-Z Databases list to discover other subject-appropriate databases. The "All Subjects" drop-down menu helps find databases in a certain discipline.
NOTE: The descriptors, or subject headings, can differ from one database to another so check with the database's thesaurus or subjects list for the terms used for test validity.